ERNESTO BAZAN – my very private story

This will undoubtedly be one of the most important photographic events in Poland, in 2018: The Cuban Trilogy – Ernesto Bazan

Below I share with you, a short personal text about Ernesto Bazan, and press information prepared by the Institute of Photography FORT, which concerns both the upcoming exhibition and photographic workshops. I highly recommend both of these events

The press release below, prepared by Fundacja Fotografii FORT, synthetically describes his incredible contributions to contemporary photography. I will share a very private story related to this unique man, a great photographer, Ernesto Bazan.

It was a few years ago by browsing the Internet in search of good photographic books, I unexpectedly found a publication that magnetically caught my attention. The book was entitled Bazan Cuba.

I watched as enchanted, charmed and taken over by the emotional charge of photography, their content, the sequence in which they were arranged taking into account the author’s personal journal’s notes. I thought that this book had to immediately become part of my collection of photo books, and when I’d get it, it will probably become one of the most important publications in my possession.

The more I looked at the photographs the more I was taken by a strange conviction that there was a man somewhere in the world who had a similar sensibility to mine. Although it was hard to believe, I had a distinct impression that I sensed and understood the motivation that moved the author every time he pressed the shutter.

Suddenly, I had the impetus to meet him.

It took me a few days before I got the Ernesto’s phone number. He received me in New York, where he owned a house and a studio in Brooklyn. I asked for a meeting. He set a day and an hour for us to meet in the next three days, but he did not ask me where I was calling from, and I decided that I would not explain that I lived in Warsaw.

During this time, I travelled extensively. I had thousands of free miles collected in various airlines, so I got on the plane the next day and flew from Warsaw to meeting him in New York.

The dinner we had together lasted almost three hours. I left again, stunned and enchanted.

Here it is the empirical confirmation of all my intuitions before flying overseas. I spoke with a warm and gentle man who told me about the purpose of his life, about the values that motivated him and his photographic work, about the human condition that he has been looking at, about truth and the freedom of those who are fighting for such values, and those who he loved and photographed. He spoke about love and the power of faith, about everything that I could sense intuitively when looking at his photographs in Warsaw.

We exchanged books and I got on the plane and returned to Warsaw feeling that I had made a new friendship with him, which continues to this day. Nurtured by both of us, our friendship provides the most wonderful experiences, for which I thank you very much Ernesto!

Tomasz Tomaszewski

PS. And for coming to dinner all the way from Warsaw, I admitted Ernesto after a few years, when in Sicily we had another joint workshop.